


Cuts (Or Three Times The Killjoys Doted on Jet's Hair and One Time They Couldn't)

by ScumbagSimon



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Angst, Autistic Mikey Way, Family Feels, Gen, Hair, Ray-centric, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25001374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScumbagSimon/pseuds/ScumbagSimon
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21





	1. One

Party often compares Jet's excess amount of hair to a pillow. It's puffy, soft, and whenever they get themselves into a situation that would cause head damage, Jet always seems to get away with the least wounds. Still, Party doesn't mind being a second pillow, or at least letting his lap be one.  
It's not a couch that they're sitting on. It's a loveseat, plaid in pink and yellow, faded and patched. It's too short, so Jet's knees are hooked onto the arm with his feet dangling off the edge. His head is in Party's lap, eyes closed but not asleep. Party is marveling at the feel of curls. His own hair is wavy when he grows it out, but nothing like Jet's.   
“Have you ever thought about dying it?”  
Jet hummed noncommittally. “I suppose. Purple, maybe.”  
“Don't ever dye your hair,” Party wound a strand around his fingers. “Ever.”  
Jet cracked a grin. “Do I get a say in it?”  
“Absolutely not.”  
“Yes, my lord,” Jet shifted minutely, apparently finding a more comfortable spot, still smiling.   
Party considered flicking Jet's face as retribution but decided against it. He let the strand of hair slip from his hand, then picked another. “Bitch.”  
The smile was unwavering. “Would you ever dye your hair another color?”  
“Teal,” Party nodded. He'd thought about this before. “But that might not look good with my jacket. I've thought about bleaching it like Kobra's.”  
“CopyCat,” Jet snorted. The others often used that nickname for Party. It had become somewhat of a secondary name. He wasn't sure why.  
“Fucker,” Party said, which wasn't a nickname necessarily, just what was on his mind.  
Jet's smile stretched wider for a moment, and Party basked in it. Jet had a smile like home, which was welcome after Party hadn't had a home for most of his life. He oozed the feeling of home.   
“Ooze,” Party said aloud.  
“Hm?”  
“You ooze.”  
“Thank you.”


	2. Two

An ice cube rattles against Ghoul's teeth, jumping around in his mouth, never staying in one place, to spare himself the pain of the cold. His breath became chill, and so he blew on the back of Jet's neck as he entered the room, to see gooseflesh rise from his skin.  
“Dick,” Jet grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck as Ghoul came to lie in the middle of the floor, limbs stretched out. Grains of sand, leftover from countless entrances into the diner, latched onto his sweaty arms. They needed to sweep again.  
While Ghoul sweated, shirt sticking to his skin, trying to soak up coolness from the ice in his mouth and the linoleum floor, stared enviously at Jet, who seemed mostly unaffected. Now and then he reached up to ruffle his own hair, presumably for fresh air on his neck.  
“How do you do it?”  
Jet looked up from his puzzle, stretched out in front of him on the floor, a few feet away from Ghoul. “How do I do what?”  
“Not feel like a gross sweaty swamp monster.”  
Jet snickered and shifted his back where it rested against the bottom of the diner seats. “Magic.”  
“Fuck you and your clean-hair magic. Perish and die in the desert.”  
“Perish and die mean the same things.”  
“Ugh,” Ghoul drew out his groan. “Too hot to speak. Language... failing me...”  
“Hurry up and stop talking faster, then,” Jet worried a puzzle piece with his teeth, brown eyes searching for its place. He was the only one of them with brown eyes.   
Ghoul crunched the last bit of the ice cube between his front teeth. It snapped in half and shattered, so he chewed until it was just water. He immediately wanted another.  
“Bleh,” Ghoul groaned, rolling over closer to Jet, on an empty patch of floor that hadn't been warmed by his body heat. His arm flopped onto the puzzle, and when Jet moved it several pieces came with it.  
“You're a fucking nuisance,” Jet picked the puzzle pieces off Ghoul's arm and put them back in their rightful places.   
“Yeah, but you love me,” Ghoul grinned.  
Jet scoffed and rolled his eyes, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Keep on dreaming.”


	3. Three

Kobra was pretty sure that Jet Star was their guardian angel. He couldn't exactly explain it, but to him it seemed truer than anything. Everything that they needed, Jet somehow understood. On the days Party would stare at a blank canvass for hours, Jet would bring a blanket into their room and throw it on top of him, then sit next to him until he fell asleep. On the days Ghoul was twitchy as a mouse, gripping his hair in fistfuls, Jet would take him on a ride in their bike, only returning hours later with an exhausted Ghoul and a low tank of gas. And on the days when everything was too sharp, and too bright, Jet would open his arms and let Kobra crawl into them, talking in a low voice like nothing was wrong, making an anchor for Kobra to hold on to.   
So when he woke up with the world screaming at him, he went out in search of their angel.  
He found him sitting on their old plaid couch, knees drawn up, staring at a book. Party and Ghoul were nowhere to be seen, maybe on a water run, so the diner was empty except for them. Jet must have recognized the look in Kobra's eyes, because as soon as he began to approach the arms were opened, and Kobra folded himself into Jet's side, like a shelter. Jet kept his book in hand and began to read in gentle tones like a lullaby.  
“Morning passed, afternoon came; but in all the silent waste there was no sign of any dwelling.”  
Kobra felt the breath enter his lungs like it was the first breath he'd ever taken. He closed his eyes and drew up his knees, feeling Jet's breath too.  
“They were growing anxious, for they now saw that the house might be hidden almost anywhere between them and the mountains.”  
Hair fell into Kobra's face, but it wasn't his own. He sent a harsh breath up, and it shifted, but didn't disappear. He decided to leave it.  
“They came on unexpected valleys, narrow with deep sides, that opened suddenly at their feet.”  
Kobra tilted his head, and he could hear Jet's heartbeat. Feel it, too, a steady, gentle thump against his ear. He took another breath.  
“And they looked down surprised to see trees below them and running water at the bottom.”  
Kobra wondered why Jet didn't have wings. He certainly seemed the type. He must have a halo, somewhere.  
“There were gullies that they could almost leap over; but very deep with waterfalls in them.”  
His voice was low, and soft, but deep. Kobra could feel him speak, his chest against Kobra's back.  
“There were dark ravines that one could neither jump nor climb into.”  
Jet was warm. It was always warm, in the desert, but Jet was warm all the way through, to his soul.   
“There were bogs, some of them green pleasant places to look at with flowers growing bright and tall.”   
Kobra turned and pressed his face into Jet's leather jacket, which he was wearing despite the heat. The... fabric? Cloth? What ever it was, stuck to his face. He didn't mind it, though he would have if it was anyone else.  
“But a pony that walked there with a pack on its back would never have come out again.”  
Kobra breathed in the smell of Jet—campfire smoke and something softer, and his mind quieted, finally.   
“It was indeed a much wider land from the ford to the mountains than ever you would have guessed.”  
Kobra didn't fall asleep. It was better than sleeping, lying here with Jet on a shitty patched couch, and listening to his voice. Kobra wasn't following the story. Just the words, individuals, thinking about how words were associated with things and why that was. His body calmed and he closed his eyes, which he hadn't realized were open again. His eyelashes fluttered against Jet's leather jacket as he finally felt safe.


	4. +One

But as good times come, bad times must come with them.  
The three of them can't do anything without being reminded of what they had lost. Something so precious, ripped away so cruelly; they are not unused to grief in the desert, but they are not accustomed to it either. There are three familiarly shaped gaps in their chests, accompanied by a feeling of emptiness, and bittersweet memories.  
Loss is a difficult enemy.  
Kobra spent the first day cleaning up the aftermath of what had happened. He kept a brave face on, but anyone who knew him well could see right through it. He felt the loss just as strongly as the other two, and looking at the remains left him feeling sick, but he soldiered on until there was no evidence it had ever happened. The ghosts of it still lingered in his mind.  
Party always drew to cope with horrible things, and this occasion was no different. He always liked drawing Jet, but this time wasn't fun. When he finished the drawing, he stared at it for almost an hour, reminiscing, until he took the drawing and closed it in an old filing cabinet. He couldn't bear to look at it a second longer, but the image was still burned behind his eyes. He could never forget what they had lost.  
Ghoul was always a loud and energetic person. He liked to make lots of noise, and have lots of fun, but he was muted. The loss was the last straw before the camel's back broke, and he was so tired. He would sit outside, regardless of the sun, until one of the others would convince him to come inside. He slept on the roof of the diner, under the stars, dreaming of bittersweet times until he was woken up by the sunrise.   
Sweet Jet. Jet who had always cared for his boys. Jet with a smile like home and a mop of fluffy brown hair. Hair that was now gone.   
He tried to be sympathetic for the three of them, but in all honesty he couldn't stop himself from laughing. They had made such a fuss when he'd shaved his head on a whim, and he could have sworn Ghoul cried a little. He'd been pouting ever since. He'd caught Party staring at a picture of his hair, and Kobra had spent the entire day solemnly sweeping it out of the diner. Maybe a buzz cut wasn't the best look for Jet, but the look on their faces had been worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got em


End file.
